Hurricane Helene’s Devastation Shows No Region Is Safe from Climate-Fueled Disaster

image via New Scientist

September 30, 2024, 3:00 PM

• •Hurricane Helene, an unusually large and powerful storm, rapidly intensified after racing through record-warm waters in the Gulf of Mexico.
• •More than 60 deaths were reported across at least five states as of Sunday night, with officials warning that many more are likely to be reported in the coming days.
• •Communities across Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee and surrounding states were inundated by catastrophic floods. Millions of people lost power. And property damages are expected to amount to tens of billions of dollars.

Hurricane Helene made landfall Thursday night as a Category 4 hurricane, first hitting communities on Florida's Gulf Coast that were still recovering from multiple previous hurricanes. Preliminary storm surge estimates suggest that water levels in parts of the Big Bend likely exceeded 15 feet, according to the National Hurricane Center. As Helene barreled inland, it dumped record-breaking rainfall on communities across Georgia and the Carolinas. The National Weather Service issued a flash flood emergency alert for Atlanta for the first time after the city received an unprecedented 11 inches of rain in 48 hours.

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